Innovating with career analytics and big data

The VDAB is the public employment services agency of Flanders. It has profiled itself as a trailblazer in Europe by using the creative power of modern digital technologies. The case outlines the VDAB’s strategy to seize digital opportunities for enabling its ambition to make a transition from being a mere service provider to becoming a conductor of the labour market. A ‘New Digital Services’ Lab was established in order to experiment with new value propositions. The CEO has charged the Lab to come up with one initiative that can demonstrate the potential and implications of using big data analytics in view of realizing the new strategy.

Learning objectives:

This case allows for an in-class exercise that seeks to introduce students to the concept of big data analytics for fuelling digital transformation.

It helps them to understand how data analytics can contribute to a different way of working and doing business. Students are asked to develop an idea of their own into a (light-weight) project proposal for VDAB.

The exercise will allow them to address issues regarding the value, the feasibility and the viability of using data analytics for digital transformation.

The students are asked to make sense of these elements from the point of view of a senior executive decision maker. The case allows the instructor to decide for herself how specific to government she wants the class discussion to be.

Though the case is situated in a government context, it is relatively easy to extrapolate many of the learning points to a broader context of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.